Anyway, when viewing manga/comics (CBR converted with calibre) I can read the text and all, but if I press Up->Centre (to zoom) the image takes up more of the screen. It would be much preferable if the thing loaded each successive image at this zoomed in state, yet it doesn't. Is there a configuration setting that would allow that?

Anyway, when viewing manga/comics (CBR converted with calibre) I can read the text and all, but if I press Up->Centre (to zoom) the image takes up more of the screen. It would be much preferable if the thing loaded each successive image at this zoomed in state, yet it doesn't. Is there a configuration setting that would allow that?

It's not a huge thing, but it's irritating.

Converting to Mobi/azw is probably the worst option for the reason you state.

If you expand the CBR/CBZ, you can actually view the images directly with Kindle's 'experimental' image viewer. But there are some drawbacks to doing so (poor performance, inconsistent file naming conventions, etc.).

Instead, you might want to check out a program called 'Mangle'. It will take a set of image files and convert them into a series of PNG's that are sized for your Kindle's screen (rotating them if necessary to fit the screen better). You can then view them full-screen using Kindle's (undocumented, 'experimental') image viewer, with no zooming or rescaling required. (You can create folders in \pictures with image files in them, and these folders will show up as items on your Home list.) The viewer has a few rough edges, but works well enough, at least on my K3.

You will need to expand the CBR before feeding the image files to Mangle. (It'd be nice if Mangle could un-RAR or un-ZIP image archives for you, but hey it is free and the source is there if someone wants to add this feature). BTW I had some issues with the Mac version (it gets 'stuck' on some files) so have switched to the Windows version until I have a chance to figure out what the problem is, or an update gets posted.

Another way is to create a PDF from the image source (e.g. convert the CBR/CBZ directly to PDF). However, I find you wind up with rescaling artifacts in fit-to-screen mode (affecting line quality), and in fit-to-width mode (the only other option worth considering) the quality is great, but you can't view enough of each page to see what is going on.

Taking the downscaled image files from Mangle and combining these into a PDF gives good results in terms of quality, is a more convenient packaging than a folder with a bunch of files in it, allows you to set bookmarks and annotations, view progress & page numbers, and seems to be a little faster and consistent (e.g. the image viewer won't stay in full screen mode from session to session). But it is an extra step in the workflow, and you need to have a tool for it (or again, modify Mangle to do the PDF conversion).

Using the image viewer is a good way forward, but it does pull up other problems. Even after batch resizing with mangle, the resultant images load slower than a converted mobi for example, and the image viewer has multiple issues (switching pages often tears horizontally, or leaves a partial ghost image when the next image isn't the same exact size) and mangle itself doesn't post-process images sufficiently for my liking (letter edges are far too soft, whereas calibre sharpens by default). Mangle is much faster than batch processing with irfanview though, which is what I used to use when processing manga to read on my PSP.

All that said, it is VERY nice to lose the locations bar at the bottom, even though it is replaced with the bar at the top.

It does seem that manga is the most readable on my device, still, as a converted mobi file when zoomed in ever so slightly.

I guess it's still early days though. Let's hope amazon pulls their thumb out, and gives the kindle more configuration options.

Using the image viewer is a good way forward, but it does pull up other problems. Even after batch resizing with mangle, the resultant images load slower than a converted mobi for example, and the image viewer has multiple issues (switching pages often tears horizontally, or leaves a partial ghost image when the next image isn't the same exact size) and mangle itself doesn't post-process images sufficiently for my liking (letter edges are far too soft, whereas calibre sharpens by default).

I believe the severe ghosting usually only happens when switching between pages of different size. This should be resolved by enabling 'Draw frame around images' to make all the images the same size.

Canti doesn't have a graphical interface like Canti but it can handle cbz/cbr/images and a whole folder tree of the above. Probably the best reason to use this over Mangle is the option to automatically split two-page spreads into two individual pages. For small resolution devices like the K3, this makes text readable in two-page spreads, which appear often in manga.

Canti, by default, takes all the output images and packages it into a PDF. The only problem is that the kindle's PDf viewer lacks a full screen mode and thus the page is always smaller than desirable due to the forced margins. So now I just disable that option and view the images directly.